


our heaven is fleeting, our history read

by MisPronounce_and_MisAccent



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology, Hadestown - Mitchell
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Introspection, Post-Canon, Recovery, Temporary Character Death, because its what they deserve, gives the story a happy ending, not so much "temporary" as "there exists an afterlife so not really" character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 09:03:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18891454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MisPronounce_and_MisAccent/pseuds/MisPronounce_and_MisAccent
Summary: He is sunk to his knees and she is sinking down, down, down.Back to Hadestown.Back to Hell.And the fault, for that, is his.Orpheus, after the turn.





	our heaven is fleeting, our history read

**Author's Note:**

> I saw Hadestown for the first time this afternoon, and I was so blown away and heartbroken that I was moved to write this. I haven't listened to the album yet and I've only seen it this one time, so if I misunderstood or missed anything in the show that led to any errors in this, I apologize and please let me know!

He is sunk to his knees and she is sinking down, down, down.

Back to Hadestown.

Back to Hell.

And the fault, for that, is his.

And maybe it isn’t, he’s able to think, years and years after. That it wasn’t his fault so much as it was that of Fate. That, yes, his doubt had played a part in it, that he could take some of blame, even the lion’s share, but it was unfair to himself to let it all weigh on his shoulders. She wouldn’t want that. She would want him to be happy.

But in the moment, she is being dragged from him, from earth, from sunlight and music and identity, all because he was five steps to freedom and he couldn’t make it without looking back. Without letting doubt win. He watches her descent, his knees scraped against the ground and his eyes welling with tears that do not shed, cannot, and it doesn’t matter if she would want him to be happy, because she cannot want anything, anymore.

He doesn’t know how long it is until he is able to stand.

* * *

Life is different, after that.

He leaves behind his railside home, takes his lyre and goes far and far and far until he can no longer be tempted to try again, to follow that railroad all the way down and fight in vain to bring her back. He knows it would fail, of course, but when it is an option, he cannot help but wonder.

So he takes to new towns every few months, rarely ever staying in the same place long enough to see both Persephone’s return to the land and her return to her lover from the same home. (Not that he actually _sees_ Persephone; she frequents the railside towns still, he assumes, with her liquor and dancing and brightness, though she doesn’t venture out far to where he is. But he can sense her presence in the green of the grass and the buds of the flowers, and her absence in the changing of leaves and the gentle bite of frost, and her happiness in the fact that spring and fall even exist.) 

He misses some constants of his old life: his job, as monotonous as it was, and the people, and Hermes, whom he hasn’t seen since before he set off on that road with her behind him. He misses it, yes, but the memories of his old life are memories of her, and he could never want to forget, to leave her behind, but there are times he needs to think and he cannot do it, crowded like that. Sometimes, he needs an escape.

He travels on with a heavy heart, and feels grief and loneliness as strongly as he’d felt love.

* * *

But heavy hearts cannot beat for long, so, slow as it may be, he learns to live again.

He meets people, and he plays the lyre.

He doesn’t fall in love.

He drinks, when he feels like it, and he sings until flowers grow.

But never red carnations.

He laughs, he mourns, he dances, he weeps, he runs, he rests.

He drowns in memories until he is held afloat by those he learns to call his friends, and he relies on them until he teaches himself to swim. Until he can say her name without sinking to his knees in a mirror of the day he lost her. Until he can play that melody without his fingers freezing on the strings and the tune freezing in his throat. Until the flowers he sings life into don’t wilt the moment he remembers the first he ever made.

His life is ever-changing, never rooted in place, and always slightly out-of-tune. Never the perfect harmony it’d been when she had stood beside him, but not bad. Not quite-right, ever, but not bad. He sings, he plays, he loves the world and the friends he makes, and he never, never forgets her.

When his days grow numbered, he walks back to that railside town, and boards the train with no hesitation.

* * *

Hadestown, this time around, welcomes him.

He walks with tired bones and with purpose, through the Underground, never looking down. When he passes its Lady, she looks at him, with curiosity that gives way to recognition, and stops him with a hand. “I’m sorry there wasn’t more to be done,” she tells him, with a sobriety he seldom remembers of her. He nods, an acceptance, and walks on. She isn’t who he’s here to see.

Hades’ office doors open when he knocks. Inside is the god looking no less imposing than he had, all those many, many years ago. Hades listens to what he has to say, and offers him, as the King of Hell always does, a choice.

But it’s never really a choice, is it?

He signs, the long, bony fingers shaking as he does, but the moment the pen lifts from paper, the fingers are deft and still, once again. He can feel it in the strength of his arms and the smoothness of his face, the youth that has been returned to him. But it is not a kindness, he knows.

Hades has no use for workers past their prime, and that is what he now is.

So he steps, with legs that no longer buckle, into the heat.

* * *

She had told him about what Hadestown does to its workers, the glazed over eyes that look but don’t see, the tired ears that hear but don’t listen. She had told him of their mindlessness, the way they lost who they were, forgetting everything, even their names.

Except, he doesn’t really remember who ‘she’ is, anymore.

He doesn’t remember all that much, outside the work. And there is so much work to be done.

Between the shoveling and lifting and the sweat and the heat, he sometimes catches, in the corner of his mind, a flash of a memory. A wordless, half-baked melody, a hint of a girl’s smile, the bright red of a flower petal. His own name, not the letters or syllables that make it up, but rather, the vague idea of the way it had sounded, carried over a tune sung by a beautiful voice. 

When he thinks of these things, there is a pain deep in his stomach and a welling in his eyes, but his muscles already ache from lifting and his skin already glistens with sweat and he cannot afford further hurt or loss of water. So he doesn’t think. He works, and works.

And he keeps his head down.

* * *

Until he doesn’t.

Until, for whatever reason— a trace of his mother’s divinity, a gift from Persephone or the pity of Hades, or the Fates playing again their tune, not that he remembers any of these people— he lifts his head. He doesn’t know his name nor his past, doesn’t have any feelings besides the wisps of emotion in unbidden memory, doesn’t do anything beyond what he is told, until that moment, where something deep inside him shouts, louder than the desire to perpetuate this monotony, that he must look up.

And she is there.

She is there, and she too is looking up, looking at him. He doesn’t know her— except he does, except the longer his head is raised the more it rushes back, the sound of her laugh and the rhythm of her voice and the feeling of her hand in his. He steps towards her. She steps towards him. There are workers in his periphery, moving and contributing as he should be. But she is there and she is bright, brighter than all the lights in Hadestown, and he cannot look away from her.

They are stood, nearly toe-to-toe, in the center of Hell, and he was been here before, he knows with an unwavering certainty he hasn’t felt in very long. And, with that same certainty, he knows that he is meant to be here, the way he has not been meant for anything since the last time he saw her. When her face breaks into a smile, and his does the same, he knows, more surely still, that he loves her.

And when she takes his hand, it comes back with perfect clarity.

“Orpheus,” she says, and he takes her into his arms.

“ _Eurydice_.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you ever so much for reading!! I haven't written and posted something in the same day in... a very long time, so not only is it a bit of an un-beta'ed rush job, I'm also out of practice. But I hope you could enjoy it, because I do really enjoy writing these introspective, dialogue-light pieces, and I do really enjoy Hadestown!!
> 
> Thank you again, and please leave a comment if you feel moved to do so! I'd love to hear any thoughts on this, whether complimentary or constructive.
> 
> And have a lovely evening!


End file.
